Scouts and Libraries

I’m not exactly sure what happened, but we had three different scout troops visit the library this weekend and I must say – we should be reaching out to these groups more often!  On Monday, a group of 2nd grade Brownies came in, on Thursday – a group of 4th grade Brownies and a separate group of Boy Scouts came in and it was great!

For both groups of Brownies, we read a few stories, took a library tour, spent time crafting and of course had a snack!  I shared Open This Little Book by Jesse Klausmeier and Suzy Lee with the 2nd graders and they really enjoyed seeing the format of the book – something they had never seen before.  Then I also read The Library Gingerbread Man by Dottie Enderle and Colleen M. Madden.  This is a great way to introduce the Dewey Decimal System to younger children with the repeating stanza, “Run, run as fast you can!  You can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man”  The girls had a great time reciting these lines with me as the story progressed.  Our library pet turtle is a huge attraction during library tours and the girls got a chance to watch her being fed (which is always a highlight!) and were excited about seeing things in the library they didn’t know about such as the Playaways.  Afterward, we designed scratch art bookmarks that the girls could take home with a snack of lemonade and goldfish.

The 4th graders had a similar program, but I swapped out the two stories for the book, The Library Pages by Carlene Morton and Valeria Docampo.  We had a similar tour and snack , but the older girls created their own shrinky dink artwork and were so excited to watch it shrink in the toaster oven.

The Boy Scout troop did not come in for a specific library-focused program, rather they came to a program we were hosting with an astronomy group.  I’m so glad the troop leader thought to call us about this opportunity and gave us the information before the night of the program.  They seemed to enjoy the program and I’m beginning to think about other ways in which we can support the local troops in the area.  Library orientation programs tend to be easy to put together and I’d love to see more kids coming into the library and feeling more comfortable about finding books, asking questions, and checking books out.  This is definitely something to think about…